During my stay at Multiplitaxion Inc; I am asked to oversee a project that folks in the management team think is not shipping as effectively as it should. I am given access to the project repository and the mailing list. By the time I close my outlook on the very first day; I see project members communicate using very different medium of communications than the ones I am used to. Somewhere; a connection seems to be missing and they don't seem to be 'talking'.

On the very first day in the project; I quite literally; get spammed with over a hundred emails.

Emails providing details about mundane; irrelevant facts like:

A programmer just checked in a couple of code file.

A tester is taking the local development database down for five minutes.

A tester is taking SVN update.

The local database is back up again.

Bug IDs of bugs that have been assigned to a particular developer.

Bug IDs of bugs that have been fixed and assigned to a particular tester.

People in this project; had a tendency to paste SVN logs into emails and send those out for every check-in that they did. For every piece of work that you did; for every minor assignment you completed; it was expected that you to write an email; and send it out. When you send the email you were expected to copy the entire team.

Now; to be honest; there was nothing wrong with me getting over a hundred emails. I would have been happy deleting the emails and moving on with my life; but then a hundred plus emails in my inbox meant that:

People on the project were wasting a lot of time writing these emails.

People on the project were wasting a lot of time reading these emails and dealing with random redundant noise.

It was generally believed that if a programmer sent out a cryptic email with a SVN log of a check-in; he basically passed the responsibility of testing the code over to a tester; who was supposed to grab that email; get an update; understand what changed by looking at the log; and test the newly built functionality.

Shivers of chill ran down my spine as I saw the hundred plus emails get downloaded into my mailbox; emails with cryptic signals that you had to monitor like a hawk to see what was getting done or for that matter; what was not getting done. Terror struck with the number of emails I was getting just from this project team; I decided to investigate and find out what started the whole CYA exercise of emailing the entire team every time you did anything.

Turns out; the team had once been told to send out regular email updates on every SVN commit they did. Being the introverts and un-social creatures we as programmers are; every single programmer in the team; even the best of the builders; started following the rule; and in some little perverted corners of their geeky-brains started somewhat enjoying the rule.

When I was asked in a management meeting what it would take to get the team to become fully productive; my response was simple; direct and straight forward. The team was already productive. All you had to do to get things done was cut off their email accounts from them and you would have a golden team that not just flocked well; but communicated and connected with each other.

That dear reader; was of-course easier said than done. After days of trying to convince people to walk up to person in the next cubical and talk; if there was one thing that I learnt it was this: if you want your programmers to succeed; keep them as far away from meetings and emails. Get them white-boards; get them markers and more than anything else get them to talk to each.

What is worse; is that you might be spending hours of your day pretending to yourself that you are indulging in an act that is professional when all you are doing is indulging in a CYA excursive; wasting your time and the time of those who work with you.

Facing a problem fixing that code you are working on?

Don't send an email yet; go talk to the person sitting in the cubical next to you; ask for help and try to strike a meaningful one on one conversation.